Guilt
by ThisCouldTheoreticallyBeSparta
Summary: Volkner shouldn't feel these things, but Lucas is a kindred spirit.


GUILT

Fandom: Pokémon

Pairing: Stokeshipping (Volkner/Lucas)

Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, romance

Rating: PG-15

Disclaimer: belongs to Nintendo and Game Freak. The only thing I can claim to own is my beloved Sceptile, Gohan.

Word count: 2,022

Warning: Shota

Summary: Volkner shouldn't feel these things, but Lucas is a kindred spirit.

A/n: Kink meme de-anon. I can't seem to think of any of the PCs as ten- or eleven-year-olds. I don't think they're younger than twelve, at least that's how I see them. Lucas has been on the road for two years.

.

Oh God, it _hurts_.

Every time he wakes up in the morning and sees that slim form next to him on the bed. It happens again whenever he smiles, and that maturity he has just falls away, revealing his true age. This boy is only fourteen, for fuck's sake.

The guilt itches under Volkner's skin like venom. It makes his chest constrict and his stomach pulse hot-cold-hot-cold continuously. He lays awake at night. He's studied every nook and cranny of the ceiling (and it needs to be repainted, really, it's flaking near the wall) at a time when hearing the soft breathing of a slumbering lover is supposed to lull one to sleep instead of keep them alert. But Lucas sounds so young when he sleeps, like two years of hardships on the road and more burdens than a child should ever have (honestly, what was Cynthia _thinking_?) just fall away and make him so painfully fourteen again.

But how can he resist? Lucas had been the one, blushing and fidgeting with his scarf, to ask for a kiss once he'd won for the second time, at the Battleground. And Volkner… First instinct was to just peck him on the cheek and laugh it off. But he hadn't wanted to do that. Just the way Lucas peered hopefully up from under the shadow of that ridiculous-adorable hat, licking his lips.

God, he just wanted to kiss the boy senseless.

And he did. He placed his hands on Lucas's shoulders and pressed their lips together. And it was electricity; it was fire… it made him hypersensitive. He felt Lucas shudder under his touch and push closer, whimpering in his throat (so young, so inexperienced). Thin arms snaking around his chest, slim body against his.

And Volkner realised, with an inner horror, that he didn't want it to end.

.

He'd lain awake that night, his hands pressed to his face in disgust at himself.

.

And he'd stopped dead in seeing Lucas _there_, in his gym the next morning, showing Janet his Shaymin. The little girl's Pikachu quickly makes friends with the flowery little hedgehog and soon they were running around. Volkner resists the urge to walk up to Lucas and demand to know why he's there. So he saunters, hands in his pockets, instead.

"Hey," he says. And Lucas offers him a smile so bright it rivals the Lighthouse beacon, that's so painfully obvious, and Volkner feels a stab to his heart that hurts so much it almost stops it.

.

So, Lucas starts spending far too much time with Volkner in his apartment above the Gym. He acts as if he owns the place, lounging on his couch and cuddling Raichu happily.

"Why are you here?" Volkner asks eventually, exasperated and slightly desperate. If Lucas stopped being around so much, he could go back to trying to bury these feelings deep down inside him in that dark vault, the same he locked his depression in for so long.

Lucas just looks at him, battle-weary eyes in a youthful face, and Volkner knows this kid has seen more in two short years that he'll ever see in his whole life. He sets Raichu down next to a napping Shaymin, stands up and walks over to where Volkner stands, in the middle of the room, hands on his hips.

"Can't you guess?" he asks back, pressing thin fingers to Volkner's chest, warm through Volkner's shirt. There is a creak of leather in the following silence as Volkner averts his guilty eyes from Lucas's far-too-sincere ones and runs an almost shaking hand through his hair.

"Don't look away, please," Lucas begs. "Everyone looks away. I hate it when they do that."

Volkner turns back at that. Suddenly knows why Lucas came to him. He needed someone to who could understand this strange, misshapen hurt inside: someone who carried something dark inside them. Lucas isn't like anyone else, not anymore – one Pokéball he carries at his belt testify to that, and Volkner realises he's the only one who doesn't look at the boy as if he's volatile, weird. _Dangerous_.

And Volkner kisses him, hard, hoping to convey what he means.

"I'll _never_ look away," he murmurs. And he means it, because he doesn't from that day on.

.

Lucas's visits become evermore frequent. He often spends the night now, curled up against Volkner's chest, drinking in the human contact and affection. It's horribly platonic.

Volkner has needs, though. He tries not to draw attention to them, dealing with them on his own, wondering if Lucas even understands this, but it's Lucas who comes to him, once it becomes obvious Volkner is restraining himself.

"I always thought," he says one night, "that it would be _me and Barry_ or _me and Dawn_. They can't even look me in the eye now." He rolls over onto Volkner and kisses him.

"Can it be _me and you_?" he asks, slightly breathless with a mixture of nerves and thrill. Volkner just blinks in surprise for a moment, before pulling him down, a hand pressed against the scruff at the back of Lucas's head, and kissing him again, again, deep and hard… until Lucas is pulling at him, moaning desperately, wanting it so hard it makes Volkner remember what hormones are like.

Lucas is painfully tight, even after so much preparation. His expression is all scrunched-up eyes and his throat gives out pained mewls that betray his voice hasn't quite broken yet. Volkner leans down and shushes him, soothes with sweet words he'd never thought he'd say, kissing his forehead, cheeks, chin, lips.

"It's your turn not to look away," he says, almost challengingly. Lucas opens his eyes at that, looking slightly worried and ever so young.

"It… hurts…"

"I know. We all go through it," Volkner reassures him, kissing him again. It loosens Lucas enough to make the boy wind his arms around Volkner's shoulders, until, finally, he asks in a shaking voice for Volkner to move.

And Volkner does. Slow, shallow, getting Lucas used to him, until the boy begs for more, his head thrown back but his eyes still locked on Volkner's, grey to blue, and Volkner feels somewhat soothed by this. In this moment, this rush of movement and touch and those thousand other senses that come out only during sex, Volkner forgets that this is wrong, forgets the world exists, and lets _go_.

.

Once it's over, Lucas has been asleep for hours and the endorphins have dissipated, Volkner can't stand being in his own skin.

He gets up and takes a shower, scrubbing at himself as if he can wash it away. Once he's red, raw and hurting, a fitting penitence, he dries off and sits on the couch in his dressing gown. He wishes he had a cigarette. And he presses his hands to his face and cries silently at his weakness.

"Volkner?"

He stops immediately, trying to dry his eyes surreptitiously.

Lucas stands in the doorway that leads from the bedroom to the living room, wearing Volkner's t-shirt and giving him a sorrowful, puzzled look.

"It's nothing," answers Volkner, trying to force a smile. He can't even manage a twitch of the corners of his lips. Lucas's puzzlement becomes a frown, and he walks over to sit down. That walk is too confident for a boy his age.

"I _want_ this," he says. His eyes are too old for his face. Too stubborn, as well.

"I know," Volkner replies, running a hand through Lucas's hair, cupping his cheek, "but _I'm_ not supposed to."

This time it's Lucas's turn to comfort him. Holding him, kissing him. And though Volkner cannot and will not look away from Lucas, he cannot look at himself in the mirror.

.

He gets drunk with Flint often. It's only natural, really, they've been bar-hopping since before they were legal. Still, it's been a long time since Volkner's tried mnemonic suicide by alcohol, and he's under the table far sooner than Flint.

So the Elite 4 member stands over him as Volkner heaves into a bush, preaching about not mixing drinks and leaving the shots alone. He then tells the Gym Leader he's had far too much to drink and takes it upon himself to heave Volkner home.

"Volkner… Volkner, dude, I don't have a key, man…"

Lucas opens the door. And Volkner's suddenly deadly sober. Lucas's lips twitch and he opens the door wider to allow Flint to carry him in and dump him on the bed.

He pretends to be asleep as he listens hard to whatever Lucas and Flint say to each other.

"I'll take it from here," Lucas says, sounding amused.

"Ok then, I'll come check on the idiot tomorrow." Flint's voice doesn't betray anything. He bids Lucas farewell and Volkner hears the door click shut. After a few moments, Lucas enters the bedroom and kneels by the bed.

"You're worried," Lucas says, stroking his hair. "Don't worry."

And he has the decency to hold Volkner's bangs back as he pukes into the basin Lucas thoughtfully brought.

.

Flint doesn't appear until mid-afternoon, looking far more cheerful than he should, given how Volkner feels like shit. Volkner is sitting in the shade of the Gym, wearing a pair of sunglasses and nursing a cup of coffee as he watches Lucas train with Giratina. Giratina isn't exactly overly enthusiastic about this. It still hasn't come to terms with being caught.

Flint stops right next to him, leaning against the wall with his arms in his pockets. They've known each other so long, greetings are superfluous.

"Only he could think of using a damn Legendary like Giratina in broad daylight," says Flint, sniggering. Volkner hums and takes a sip of his coffee. They remain silent for a while, watching Lucas comfort a terrified Shaymin.

"Listen," Flint goes on eventually, uncharacteristically serious, "I get what you see in him. I do. Man, that kid's more mature than _I'll_ ever hope to be. I'm still your friend, because I know you're not taking advantage of him. But… just be careful, ok?"

Volkner removes his sunglasses, squinting up at Flint. He's a little surprised.

"Thank you," he says, sincerely. Flint shrugs and saunters over to Lucas and Giratina. Volkner doesn't hear what they're saying, but Flint gestures exaggeratedly at Giratina and Lucas bursts out laughing.

And, as Volkner finishes his coffee, he supposes the guilt isn't so harsh anymore.

.

That night, Lucas is curled up against him as they lie together on the couch, flicking through the channels absently. Shaymin is huddled on Lucas's stomach, and Raichu is flaked out on the back of the sofa.

"It's only two years," he says, out of the blue. Volkner hums curiously.

"Then I'm legal," Lucas clarifies. "Two more years and no one will have anything to say anymore."

He finally settles on a documentary on Doduo and Dodrio migrations (which makes a change from Flint who looks compulsively for anything that might have naked women in it, taking advantage of the foreign satellite channels Volkner doesn't remember why he has). Volkner leans down and kisses him on the temple, and Lucas hums happily.

"What're two years, after all?" he says, settling down a little better and keeping an arm firmly around the boy as the narrator begins to wax lyrical about the miles Dodrio trek across Johto to get to the nesting grounds on Kanto's Cycling Road.

Volkner falls asleep a little while after, and Lucas smiles, switches the TV off and snuggles into Volkner's chest, falling asleep as well.


End file.
